A NEW YEAR'S COLLOQUY WITH TIME. ELEVEN O'clock at night! But another hour, and all that remains of the present year will have been borne upon the tireless wing of Father Time into the great gulf of eternity; and the old fellow will have turned up his glass again, ground his scythe, and laid hold of the new year; prepared to roll it onward, evolving the future from the lapse of every moment, until he shall see it safely deposited in the great grave of the past, which swallows all things. "Thou art a jolly old fellow, Father Time! Give us thy hand, and ere the bright sun of the first morning of the new year shines cheerfully over the grave of its departed brother, let us be a little sociable, and talk of the past. Do not be crusty; you need not stop in your onward march. I myself am somewhat of a traveller, and will walk an hour with you; only keep that confounded old scythe out of the way, which, since I first saw it pictured upon the cover of the Farmer's Almanac, along with the matter-of-fact couplet, I never could look at without shuddering. "Thou hast visited all countries and all climes; thou hast been in strange lands, and beheld many strange and wondrous things; thou hast kept on thy way untiring- hast passed over the great city, and left messages of joy or sorrow to millions of the sons of men. Thou hast frosted the heads of the aged, cut down beauty in its bloom, and blighted earth's fairest flowers. Thou hast brought poverty into the dwellings of affluence; thou hast by thy movements brought distrust into friendly bosoms, and thou hast separated families. Thou hast brought about the utterance of the first unkind word between those who had promised to love each other ever; thou hast led the youth onward to his first act of wickedness and sin, and the maiden rashly to forsake the dwelling of her childhood the merchant to the verge of bankruptcy, and from thence to ruin, and to death; thou hast plunged the man of crime still deeper into the abyss of iniquity-caused children to weep over the death of their parents, and parents for the departure of their children. Thou hast done all these things, old Time; and now, what canst thou say for thyself? Hast done any good, old fellow? any thing for which we shall commend thee, or which should make us hail thy presence with gladness?" "Mortal, listen!" said Time. "God is good, and to perform his will am I sent to the earth. 'Tis to work out the designs of his good providence, that I wend my way hither and thither over this little globe of yours. True, I have frosted The person who told me her story had seen her at a masquerade. There can be no exhibition of far-gone wretchedness more striking and painful than to meet it in such a scene to find it wandering like a spectre, lonely and joyless, where all around is gay- to see it dressed out in trappings of mirth, and looking so wan and woe-begone, as if it had tried in vain to cheat the poor heart into a momentary forgetfulness of sorrow. After strolling through the splendid rooms and giddy crowd, with an air of utter abstraction, she sat herself down on the steps of the orchestra, and looking about for some time with a vacant air, that showed her insensibility to the gairish scene, she began, with the capriciousness of a sickly heart, to warble a little plaintive air. She had an exquisite voice; but on this occasion it was so simple, so touching, it breathed forth such a soul of wretchedness, that she drew a crowd mute and silent around her, and melted every one into tears. The story of one so true and tender could not but excite great interest in a country so remarkable for enthusiasm. It completely won the heart of a brave officer, who paid his addresses to her, and thought that one so true to the dead could not but prove affectionate to the living. She declined his attentions, for her thoughts were irrevocably engrossed by the memory of her former lover. He, however, persisted in his suit. He so licited, not her tenderness, but her esteem. He was assisted by her conviction of his worth, and her sense of her own destitute and dependent situation, for she was existing on the kindness of friends. In a word, he at length succeeded in gaining her hand, though with the assurance that her heart was unalterably another's. He took her with him to Sicily, hoping that a change of scene might wear out the remembrance of early woes. She was an amiable and exemplary wife, and made an effort to be a happy one; but nothing could cure the silent and devouring melancholy that had entered into her very soul. She wasted in a slow and hopeless decline, and at length sunk into the grave, the victim of a broken heart. It was on her that Moore, the distinguished Irish poet, composed the following lines: She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps, And lovers around her are sighing; But coldly she turns from their gaze and For her heart in his grave is lying. weeps, He had lived for his love-for his country he died; O, make her a grave where the sunbeams rest, They'll shine o'er her sleep like a smile from the west, W. IRVING. LABURNUM. Cytisus. LANGUAGE-PENSIVENESS. A GENTLE maiden, whose large loving eyes Or autumn sunshine, mellowed when most bright; She is not sad, yet in her gaze appears Something that makes the gazer think of tears. A soul, too, more than half divine, MRS. EMBURY. Where, through some shades of earthly feeling, Religion's softened glories shine, Like light through summer foliage stealing, MOORE. Few know that elegance of soul refined, Can e'er afford. WARTON. |